Woman denies murdering solicitor husband

Stef Hall

A newly-wed has denied murdering her husband at their £320,000 marital home.

Mum-of-two Sharon Edwards, 42, is on trial at Manchester Crown Court.

Edwards, of Parkers Wood Close, Chorley, is accused of fatally stabbing David Edwards, 51, in the heart just weeks after their summer wedding in Las Vegas.

He was found dead in his bed by neighbours on August 23 - the day after the couple returned from a family holiday to Majorca - after Sharon Edwards had run to a nearby property, screaming that he was not breathing.

Dad-of-one Mr Edwards, a well-known solicitor in Lancashire, had confided in colleagues that he was a victim of domestic abuse, the jury was told on Monday.

Mrs Edwards, wearing a black suit, sat in the dock with a security guard, wearing earphones to listen to the proceedings, as prosecutor Anne Whyte QC said: “By the time paramedics and police arrived at the matrimonial home in order to attend to the incident, David Edwards was already dead, having sustained a fatal wound to his chest, along with less serious injuries.

“It had been a relatively brief relationship but even by the time of their wedding, it was a relationship which caused David’s friends and colleagues to be very concerned for his welfare.

“Over the next few days, you will hear about a decline in him after he started seeing Sharon Manser, as she was called then - a decline in his appearance, his professionalism, in his self-respect.

“They noticed his increasing recourse to alcohol. More importantly, they were troubled by the various visible injuries which he carried and some of which the Crown say were inflicted by Sharon Edwards.

“They were injuries which he would quite often seek to minimise.”

The court was told Mr Edwards worked as a criminal solicitor in Chorley and had previously been a partner in a local firm until it was taken over, and that he was popular socially and professionally.